


Zero Decibels

by sakurasencha



Category: G.I. Joe - All Media Types, G.I. Joe: Renegades
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-12 03:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7917919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurasencha/pseuds/sakurasencha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After so many years, Snake Eyes has grown used to the silence. The loss of his voice never bothered him anymore. </p><p>Except when it did. </p><p>aka - "Six times Snake Eyes wished he could say her name, and one time he did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whisper

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of vignettes I'm writing for Caeser's Palace forum's shipping week. Hopefully I will be able to do all seven days. GI Joe Renegades verse, and it will run the gamut of pre-show, during the show, and post-show. The following takes directly after the end of Return of The Arashikage, pt 2, while Snake Eyes is still injured and brooding.
> 
> Day 1, prompt: whisper.

Ironically, it is her voice that first captured him.

The first time Snake Eyes laid eyes on Shana he'd been deceived by the soft, pale face, the sheen of strawberry curls that made him expect a syrupy drawl to pour out of her lips. Instead she opened her mouth and he was struck with a sword edge, words sharp and hard, as unsubtle as lightning bolts. They set everything in range ablaze, and he's been on fire since the very first, "Hell no, _you_ listen to _me_!"

So Snake Eyes is surprised when she sits down beside his supine form and speaks in that raspy, subdued, un-Shana like way, her throat a damaged husk from the poisoned darts – "So. Did you kill the Hard Master?" – and he's hit with all the undiminished power of her blade-like voice.

To the touch, his skin feels boiled alive. The fever has cooked his brains into something like scrambled eggs, and he barely manages a weak shake of his head – _No._

She won't look at him. "I want to believe you." Green eyes stare holes into the back door of the Coyote, her voice a bare whisper above the engine's roar. "But you realize I just learned more about you in a few hours than I have in the past five years." These aren't the broad strokes of her curses or commands. These words cut with surgical precision. It's her lawyer voice, and she's handing him an indictment – withholding for now a conviction, but nonetheless he's still on trial. _Sensei never tells anyone anything._ "What I don't understand is why you never told me about Jinx or Storm Shadow or any of it. Why you have to keep hiding from me, even now."

He brings a fist to his chest and inscribes a small circle. [Sorry.] Snake Eyes likes to think that when Shana first saw him, she must have expected hollowness and silence, and in that one regard he has never disappointed. What else can she feel, after unraveling his mystique to reveal nothing but a stranger cloaked in dishonor and shame? What else can _he_ feel, except – _I knew this day would come_. When all his skeletons are unearthed, hung up on the line for the world to judge. He hears them now, the bones of his old life, rattling away amidst the communal silence.

_Please say something_ , he thinks. [I should have –] his hands try. But fatigue muddles his fingers. Shana lifts her eyes from the back of the Coyote up to roof, over to the front cab, resting each of their comrades in turn, then out the windshield to watch the passing woodlands, and says nothing. Not a whisper. Not a shout. And as much as her voice has the power to destroy, the silence hurts more, cuts deeper, sinks through flesh and bone and those oh-so-carefully constructed walls he's spent his whole life building, another scar on his soul that will never fade.

[Sorry.]

She finally relents, closing her eyes: "I know." She opens them, looks right where his eyes should be. "And I believe you. I know you. Even if I know nothing about you, I know you, and I know you didn't kill your master." Touch is a fundamental part of their communication, as real as words, and often more meaningful. A tap on the nose – _you're funny_. A hand on the shoulder – _I forgive you_ – and her palm feels cool against his burning skin. "I've never kept anything from you. I just wish you trusted me enough to do the same."

But it's these moments when he desires nothing more than a voice. Not a gesture or a look-of-meaning. Even the smallest whisper would suffice. To own a word – _just one word_. The one he'd come to cherish above all others.

Because if he could say her name, if she could hear it said with a fraction of the passion that she says everything, maybe it would put her doubts to rest. Maybe he would have the courage to finally make due on his many, silent promises. _One day I will tell you everything._

[I'm sorry, Shana.]


	2. Shout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 of shipping week, prompt: Shout
> 
> This takes place sometime post-show, although the flashbacks refer to events pre-show.

Shana finds the list on a Tuesday morning.

_1\. January 23, Boston, outside the telecom building, taser burn to the chest_

She'd woken with a hankering to run through a few knife routines and was on the search for a particular blade, rifling through one of his big, black bags, the ones filled to the brim with knives and throwing stars and all sorts of deadly odds and ends, when her hand brushes something flimsy and worn in the sea of sharp steel.

She grabs the anomaly and pulls it out, squinting at the small and battered notebook with a puzzled face, the little crinkle in her nose that Snake Eyes would never dare tell her is a puppy-dog kind of adorable. "Snake, what's this?" She reads the next entry aloud. "Number two. April fifteenth. Baltimore. On the roof of the pharmaceutical lab. Three cracked ribs." She pulls a face. "Hey. Isn't this the time that one Cobra goon tackled me to the ground?"

Snake Eyes stops his meditating. Blue eyes lift open and stare at her in his inscrutable way, a dangerous non-look where anything's liable to happen. But Shana's become something of an expert at the little tells he doesn't even think to hide, and does not miss the almost imperceptible tension along his shoulders that marks when he's about to spring into action. She has just enough of a head start to take one step backwards before he's literally _on_ her, snatching at the contraband she's moved behind her back in an improbable game of keep-away.

A shout pierces his ear. "Snake! What the hell is wrong with you?" He receives several smacks on the head as he reaches around, fingers closing in on the flapping pages, and as his eyes graze over the third item on the list _– September 29, NYC, inside the server room –_ he's shot like a bullet train into the past.

_They'd made it inside undetected – first mission objective: success. But rounding the third corner of a long corridor a roaming labtech stumbles out of a side door, glimpses the lurking pair, and completely loses it. He punches a nearby alarm and runs shrieking down the hall. "Should we go get him?" Shana asks in a tight whisper._

_[No. The damage is done. We need to leave.]_

_But Shana is Shana and Shana doesn't leave until she gets what she came for. "Not yet." She's already moving, two steps ahead. "I need that drive. It has enough evidence to indict Dr. Martin, if not the whole company."_

_He grabs her arm. [They know we're here. They're on alert. It's not going to be easy.]_

" _Then we'll just have to do it the hard way, won't we?"_

_Snake Eyes chokes back a sigh. Ninjas are trained to abort once stealth has been compromised, and her recklessness gets his hackles up every time. But he's incapable of not doing anything she asks of him, so he duly covers her back, clearing corners and rooms through the barrel of his sidearm in the way she taught him as she leads them down a path to the server room._

_Shana kicks through the door. Half a dozen heads jolt up from their keyboards. "Time to give it up, boys. I need that pretty black box over there marked number sixty-seven."_

_From the hollow above the drop ceiling roof he hears six guns cocking. "Yeah?" Peering through a crevice in the tiles, he sees a slice of their leader sitting at the mainframe controls and wearing a wide, toothy grin. "You and what army?"_

" _No army." She nods her head to the ceiling. "Just him."_

_That's his cue. He drops down to a round of surprised expletives and sets to work, quickly disposing of numbers one and two, using three as a human shield for the bullet shot by number four, then as a human torpedo launched into number five. Shana wipes the grin off number six, the lead man, with a sharp kick to his teeth, and her fingers are flying across the keys by the time number four is a crumpled heap at his feet._

_Snake Eyes strides across the room to where a small, square window opens into the hall. He glances out. All clear. But if he listens closely he can hear the rumble of approaching footfalls – and something else._

_Fabric shifting in the corner. Snake Eyes snaps his head to the other side of the room, eyes wide. Slinking out of the shadow of a tower hard drive, he sees it. A seventh guard. A seventh gun. A pistol pointed at Shana's back. Her eyes are glued to the screen and do not see the death strike aiming straight for her, and Snake Eyes is too far, too far, will never reach her before he pulls the trigger and there's not a shuriken in existence that can out speed a bullet and no matter how loudly he shouts and shouts and shouts her name to warn her nothing comes out but a useless silence and –_

He'd written the entry, finished it with "bullet through the right shoulder" after he'd deposited her on the steps of the nearest emergency room, a quick kiss to the forehead and a fabricated story about a mugging gone awry.

That was two years ago. And now he's wrestling her on the living room carpet like two children who'd been given one lollipop.

She wriggles out of his grasp and jumps away to the safety of the sofa, eyes deadly. "Try a move like that again and see whether or not you wake up tomorrow morning."

He's wise enough to stand down. [That's mine. Give it back, please.]

"First tell me what it is." He folds his arms over his chest and she rolls her eyes. "Don't be like that."

His body sags. [Nothing.]

"Nothing is nothing, and this isn't nothing." Her eyes scroll down the pages. "This looks like a list of all the times I've been injured." She looks up at him again, confusion on her face. "Why would you write them down?"

[To remind me.]

"Of what?"

He hesitates, then hangs his head. [Of all the times I failed you.] In the ensuing silence Snake Eyes waits for any number of the naturally expected responses to his confession. Pity, probably. Maybe some scorn.

What he isn't prepared for is her burst of uncontrollable laughter. "You _would_ keep a catalogue of your failures in a cheap pocket notebook," she says in the same voice she oohs and aahs over YouTube videos of small children learning karate.

[Why are you laughing?]

"Because it's just so precious and so _you_."

[Shana, this is not funny.] Any amount of shame is quickly evaporating into annoyance. [Some of those times you almost _died_.]

"But I didn't die."

[No. Obviously.]

"So. Let's think about this for a minute. If I didn't die, then you didn't really fail. In fact, wouldn't that make all these…successes?" She smirks like she's just won a bet.

He shakes his head. [Stop. You're not –] His hands freeze mid air, struggling to prove her wrong. [Stop twisting everything around!]

"I'm not twisting anything. Believe it or not, not everything bad that happens is your fault, and I hate to break it to you, but a stupid list like this –" she waves the book over her head "–isn't going to keep me one bit safer."

Snake eyes closes his eyes. When he opens them a minute later, his breathing is calm. [Then what will?]

She answers him by digging back into the black bag that had started the whole mess. Two minutes later she pulls out the knife she'd originally been looking for, a six inch, black-hilted number that looks sharp enough to cut a brick clean in two. "What do you think?"

He smiles. [I think your forward thrust could use some work.]

"Then let's not waste any more time on regrets."


	3. Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shipping week day 3, prompt: cry
> 
> This takes place pre-show.

His weapons dealer called him _lone wolf_ , his pay-in-cash doctor _solo act_. And it was true that ninjas work best alone and unencumbered. But there were other reasons besides his profession for why Snake Eyes preferred solitude, and it wasn't merely a coincidence that the guy who never spoke to anyone and never showed his face to anyone and spent the majority of his time hanging out with shadows happened to find people confusing.

This girl was no exception. Although she tended to confuse him in an entirely different way.

"My father…he was a brilliant man. Everyone wanted a piece of his brain, a piece of his time. And he could never tell anybody no – except for me. So yeah, maybe he wasn't the best father in the world. But he was the only one I had. And Cobra killed him."

Sitting awkwardly by Shana's side as hot, angry tears spilled down her cheeks was not how Snake Eyes envisioned his evening going. Not that he was unaccustomed to having people weep in front of him; it was something of a recurring theme in his career.

But never had anyone taken a part of their innermost thoughts and poured them like a faucet into his bloodstained hands. "I need to know what happened. The truth, not some nonsense the publicists at Cobra cooked up." Snake Eyes lived behind his mask and reputation as much for practical reasons as he did for personal comfort. People were hard. Relationships were harder. He'd failed at both enough times in the past that it was just easier to never be seen, never be heard, to be thought of as much as one did a shadow, the aloof ninja with a cauterized heart.

Shana looked up at the cloudless night, where a pregnant moon bathed her face in silver. Snake Eyes could not tear his eyes away. A large part of him knew he took the coward's way out, that he could never be as brave as this strange mixture of sorrow and wrath, vulnerability and determination, all bundled up in a voice that took no prisoners and a pair of ferocious eyes that spiked his heart rate in a way the heat of battle never did.

"But what can I do?" Her tears were drying, the sobs reduced to sniffles. "They're a Fortune 500, worldwide, billion dollar company. Their security rivals most small countries and their lawyers have lawyers." She looked down into her hands. Her voice was small and brittle. "And me? I'm an unemployed college student."

What could he say? They'd known each other all of two weeks. They were effectually strangers and he had never been a great counselor, as Jinx would loudly attest. For a moment he wished back his voice, to say her name in a soothing whisper. _There, there, Shana_. The way his mother used to do. _Everything's going to be all right._ Feed her honey-coated lies to heal the soul, the way his mother never will again.

But anger that burned like wildfires couldn't be put out by a garden hose. Shana didn't seem like the type to quietly smolder her life away, and maybe she shouldn't be healed. Maybe she should stay as broken as he.

Snake Eyes scribbled into his ever-present notepad. YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS.

Her eyes perked as they read to the end. "Yeah?"

1\. YOU CAN KEEP CRYING ABOUT IT.

"And the other?" Maybe instead of dousing the fire he should pour on gasoline.

2\. YOU CAN LET ME HELP YOU DESTROY COBRA. Shana held the note long enough to read it three times over, hands trembling. WHICH WILL IT BE?

She lifted her head and looked him square in the eyes, her face like a lion's. "I want them in flames."

Snake Eyes could only smile behind his mask and think – _these are the moments when ninja are made_.

SO LET'S SET THEM ON FIRE.


	4. Announce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shipping week day 4, prompt - announce
> 
> This takes place post show, and you might want to get out your toothbrush and floss for this one.

A week and a half into his reconnaissance of the alleged drug cartel store houses cropping up like weeds outside of Phoenix, Snake Eyes gets the one text every man with an iron-willed girlfriend dreads:

_We need to talk._

She never contacts him when he is out on a job. They had agreed long ago on radio silence. Being on the clock, he shouldn't have given in to checking his personal phone, either. But he's lying face down, squeezed into a ventilation duct not certified for grown ninja occupancy, and the vibrating in his pocket had been too hard to ignore.

He blinks at the glowing message for several, heart-stopping minutes. _Y?_ – he types, close to needing resuscitation.

She does not reply. Snake Eyes is forced to endure the rest of the cramped hours by watching his marks, unaware of the eavesdropping ninja planting bugs and snapping photos, package cocaine by the kilo five yards below. _We need to talk._ But surveillance is difficult when his eyes keep straying to the imminent disasters awaiting him back home, all of them beginning with the phrase _we need to talk_. More than once he considers swooping down from the ceiling like an angel of mercy, putting the whole corrupt lot out of their misery so he can shelve this job and go home early and put _himself_ out of _his_ misery.

Despite his homicidal leanings, a few days later he rejoins his clients, a stack of intel in hand and a zero body count on his conscience. Exhausted and nervous, when he walks through the door of their little house immersed in predawn darkness, Shana rouses from the couch, stretches, and flips on a lamp.

"Hey." She yawns. "Are you hungry?"

He is starving. [No.]

"Good. Because there's absolutely nothing here to eat." She stands and walks towards him with tousled hair and a sleepy smile. "Welcome back." She greets him with a hug and a lingering kiss, a brief visual inspection for nicks and bruises, then heads for the kitchen. Despite there being _absolutely nothing_ she pulls a carton of ice cream from the freezer, retrieves a spoon from the drawer, and flops back onto the couch while Snake Eyes puts his gear away and changes into less foreboding attire. By the time he's returned to the living room she's already several spoonfuls in. "Sorry about that text earlier. I was…" She shrugs. "I don't know."

Vague is far from Shana's style. [It's fine.] He stands stiff-backed, bracing himself for the rest, waiting for her to elaborate, for the hammer to drop. Because his past has been nothing if not a ruthless tutor, and the one prevailing lesson is that the hammer always drops, the bubble always bursts, most often when he's at his happiest and the horizons of life seem clear and sunny – _I want you to lead the clan once I am gone_ – in one instant a bright future turned to ash.

She says, "So what took you so long getting back?"

It's not the opener he expected, and he kneels onto the floor like it's made of eggshells, looking up into her face. His hands move slowly, cautiously. [Nothing. That's normally how long a job like that takes.]

"A job like that – what kind of a job are we talking about? Were you stealing something? Killing someone." She licks her spoon with a smile. "Both?"

[Neither. And you know I can't talk about it.]

"Right. Non-disclosure contracts, clients will murder you in your sleep for betraying their secrets, blah blah." She prods the remaining ice cream with her spoon, then sets the carton aside. "Look, I know that you really love doing what you do, but how long do you think you'll keep doing it?"

[Doing what?]

"Your ninjaing."

He frowns. [You mean my _job_?]

"Come on, Snake. Can you really call it a job? It's not like you're drawing a salaried paycheck, plus medical and dental, waiting out the decades for a fat pension. You have shady contacts handing you files in back alleys and paying you in suitcases full of non sequential bills."

[It's still what I do for a living.]

"Yeah, but you don't _have_ to."

[Yes I do. I didn't go to college. I didn't even go to high school. It's the only thing I know how to do.]

"No you don't!" She shoots up from the couch. "You don't need to keep living in the underworld. You don't need to do everything alone. There's a place for you on the team whenever you want."

 _The team_. Snake Eyes rises from the floor, meeting her eyes and suppressing a sigh. _This again?_ After his half-year living on the lamb with the Joes he'd come to like them well enough. But his solitude is an ingrained trait, and the idea of making their temporary partnership anything like permanent makes him recoil.

Worry merges into annoyance. [Is that what you wanted to talk about? Me joining the US army?]

Her face pales. "Not...not exactly."

[Because we've already discussed this to death and I really don't want to do it again. Besides, can you really picture _me_ in the army?]

"Why not? Everyone wants you there and you show up on half the missions anyway. As much as General Hawk appreciates your pro bono "consultations," he'd like it a hell of a lot more if you just signed up and fell in line with the rest of the troops."

[I'm not a soldier. I don't like taking orders.] He rubs his eyes. [I'm tired, Shana. I don't want to discuss this anymore.] He moves to leave, is three steps towards the bedroom when she reaches for his hand.

"Look, that's not –" He turns around to face her and is surprised by the faint look of fear in her eyes. "The thing is...I don't like that you're gone all the time and I have no idea where you are."

His mouth drops, shocked. She'd just described their status quo since day one. [Since when?]

"Since _now_!" she nearly shouts, and he's less alarmed by her outburst than the thin band of tears filling her eyes.

[Shana, what's wrong?]

"Nothing's wrong." She's closes her eyes briefly, fighting for control. "It's just that things need to change. Things are changing, and they need to _change_!"

[Why?]

"Because I'm pregnant!"

Silence reigns, but there are a hundred other sounds to focus on. A passing car. Her staggered breathing. _Thump thump_ goes his heart, like it's running a marathon. _Tick tock_ goes the clock, a time bomb on its final seconds. For a long time Snake Eyes doesn't say anything, doesn't move a muscle, and he's sure he's never seen her look so afraid.

He turns slowly to face the kitchen, the curtains rustling gently in the night breeze, and walks forward. "Snake Eyes." He freezes. "Don't even think about jumping out of the window."

[I wasn't.]

"Yes you were."

[Okay I was.]

With her secret out, the silence broken, Shana has regained her usual aplomb. She strides back to the couch. "Come sit down with me, and let's talk about this like we're grown adults." He obeys in a half-catatonic way. "I'm having a baby. _We're_ having a baby. So." She takes a deep breath. "What do you think?"

_What do I think?_

He thinks he's terrified. He thinks there is no one less qualified to be a father than he, that purveyors of death should never be allowed the chance of making life. He thinks of the million ways this is a terrible idea and will end in utter tragedy and that people call him Snake Eyes for a very good reason.

But then he thinks of little hands and little smiles, a little girl with carrot colored hair. Shana stares at him with eyes the color and soul of nature, beautiful, untamable, the only place he'd ever felt truly at peace, and he thinks he'd like to say her name, just this once, a single word to convey the thousand thoughts he's thinking and would make up for a thousand years of silence.

[I think I want to have a family with you. I think it's what I've always wanted.]

"Really?" she says in a whisper.

[Of course.]

She smiles. "Okay." She wipes her eyes. "Okay." She settles into his arms and he holds her red head against his chest, strokes her back as she regales him with her harrowing week, the bouts of nausea and sudden cravings and six trips to the pharmacy ([Six? Really?] – "I wanted to be sure"). At the end of her tale, she says, "So what about your ninja moonlighting?"

He chokes back a groan. [I was hoping you'd forget about that.]

"No chance. You can't really expect to keep _both_ of us awake all night, wondering if you'll ever come back home."

[I know.]

"So?"

Snake Eyes heaves a long sigh, then raises a fist into the air. [Yo Joe.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay in my defense how could I not do a pregnancy fic with a prompt like that? Thanks for reading :)


	5. Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shipping week day 5, prompt: answer
> 
> This takes place...hmmm, I'm going to say in between Revelations part 1 and 2. After Scarlett confronts Snake Eyes about withholding the info on her father, but before they attack the mansion.

Shana:

Today you asked, "Why didn't you tell me?" and there are times I think this could be the theme of you and me.

I keep a lot of secrets. I always have. It would be a lie to say it's something I won't always do. The art of concealment is more than just a part of my training. For a ninja, it is a way of life, and it applies to everything. Our possessions. Our bodies. Our thoughts. Our knowledge. "Never give what can not be taken back." That's what a good sensei drills into an apprentice from day one. It's what I taught Jinx. It's also what I taught you.

But now I want to give you something that is yours to keep: the truth.

I know what you saw on those video files. Here's what you didn't see:

A little over five years ago one of my contacts, the one who matches clients to agents and negotiates the contracts, handed me a manila folder with the details of a potential job. Inside was a dossier on one Dr. Patrick O'Hara and his recent invention known only as the M.A.S.S device. "I looked it over. Seems right up your alley." She's always had a knack for knowing the kinds of jobs I'll take and the kinds I won't. The David and Goliath types were a known specialty of mine. I suppose I like to think of myself as a very effective slingshot.

It was supposed to be a simple, straightforward job. It didn't even require any prep work. All Dr. O'Hara needed was some muscle. Someone to distract Cobra security while he destroyed his machine. But I was concerned about his personal involvement in the mission. It was not standard for a client to be part of the operation. I told him it would compromise his safety. I told him I didn't want his death on my hands. But the technical mechanics of the device were beyond me. There was no way I could disable it on my own, and he explained in no uncertain terms that his priority was destroying the M.A.S.S device, not his survival.

You know what happened afterward. Your father's final decision, the explosion. He asked me to look out for you, and I agreed I would. What you don't know is that while a part of me meant it, a part of me didn't. I was already looking out for another dead man's daughter, another dead man who I couldn't save. I didn't want another responsibility that also served as a reminder for my failures.

After the explosion I spent several months recuperating, waiting for my wounds to heal. In my conscious hours I debated whether I would go after you or simply let the past stay buried with the dead. I wanted to believe that you would be okay. I wanted to believe a mild mannered college girl from Georgia wouldn't have it in her to rattle Cobra's cages enough to make a difference.

But then I remembered who her father was, and figured at the very least I should check in.

I first saw you on your way to a Communications class. It was several weeks after your father's memorial and if I had to use one word to describe you, it would be furious. Did you know I tailed you for three weeks before I ever made contact? I suppose there's no way you could know, but I watched you go to class and to the gym and eat and do homework. You alienated a lot of people and yelled at even more of them. I could tell you were special, even then. But I had no idea what you would one day become to me.

You were an angry kid and I wasn't sure what to do with you besides watch and wait. And then came the night when I stopped you from breaking into that Cobra lab. I had no plan, no back-up plan. I only knew I had to stop you, and that's what I did. I hadn't even prepared any answers to all the questions that inevitably come up when a ninja inserts himself into someone's life. "Who are you, why are you here, what do you want with me?" There are times I feel almost lucky that I can't speak, and those minutes we stood, face to face for the very first time, was one them.

Do you remember the answers I gave you, all those years ago? Something about how I was also investigating Cobra, and our meeting was a happy coincidence. Now you know they were nothing but half-truths, at best. Maybe I should have just told you the full truth, right then and there. "Cobra killed your father because of me, and I want to keep the same thing from happening to you."

But back then I was still under the illusion that you would eventually quiet down and return to a normal life. I told myself giving you the answers you were looking for would only make it harder to let go of the past, to let go of your father. I told myself I would tell you later.

What you must understand is that at the time, I'd only known you a short while. I wasn't yet aware of how much like a bulldog you are. How many times did I lecture you – "You are not equipped to take down Cobra." How many times did I point out your lack of funds, resources, training, experience? But you wouldn't listen to reason. You definitely wouldn't listen to me. By your third attempt to break into that same damn lab I'd decided to stop fighting the tide. That's why I finally agreed to train you, and maybe that was the time to give you all the answers you were searching for.

But by then we were no longer strangers. We were almost like friends. I can still see your perfect smile. I can still feel the way your arms wrapped around my neck after I told you, "Yes, you can be my apprentice." Your breath as you whispered "thank you" in my ear.

You had put such hope in me. Such faith. And the truth is I was already starting to fall.

What would you have done if I had told you then about my part in your father's death? I was afraid you would blame me. I was afraid I would lose your trust. I was afraid I would lose you, and this very new thing that I wasn't ready to risk. So I told myself it was better to focus on your training than to drag you through the gutters of the past. I told myself I would tell you later.

Your apprenticeship began. The weeks and months flew by. What do you remember most about those years? Probably a lot of bruises. I think the way you put it was, "Ninjutsu has one helluva steep learning curve, especially when you keep kicking me back down to the bottom." But sometimes I think I learned more as your sensei than you ever did as my student. Like how to go to sleep without dreading the morning. Or how to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day. You taught me to speak with my hands, the only person who ever cared enough to give me back my voice.

It felt like only a few blinks before you had graduated college and started your job in DC. You asked me to come with you. Do you remember what you said? "Snake Eyes, I'm moving to DC on Friday. When you get there, I'll need a refresher course on thrust kicks. I think my form is getting rusty." Which does sound more like an order than a request.

But the important thing was that we were still together, and I still hadn't told you. I needed to tell you. I knew I needed to tell you, and I tried many times. So many times. I wrote earlier that on the rare occasion the loss of my voice can be an advantage. As a ninja, it certainly helps in keeping all my secrets. And maybe that's why I opted for silence, the path of least resistance. Maybe it would have been easier to tell you the truth about your father if I was able to open my mouth and blurt it all out in one go.

Or maybe it wouldn't. But Shana, you can't know how many times I've wanted to speak to you. To hear my voice. To have you hear my voice, hear me say your name and understand in one word everything I mean to say, but never do.

I wanted to tell you. Please believe that. But by then so much time had passed. By then my ledger was filled not only with guilt, but five years of deceit. And we had changed. Everything between us had changed. Now there was so much more to lose. Not just your faith. Not just your friendship. I could lose your love, and I didn't think that was something I could survive. So I told myself I would tell you one day. I told myself I would tell you later.

Later, later, later. Always later.

I just hope now my answer has not come too late.

- _SE_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope that sounded like Snake Eyes' voice. I guess there's no way we'll ever know, haha. Either way I enjoyed this foray into first person, it's been awhile since I attempted it. Thanks for reading :)


	6. Reveal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shipping week day 6: prompt - reveal
> 
> Takes place pre-show, but very close to the start of episode one. Fluff alert.

"Everything's loaded in the car. I think we're all set."

[Good. So are you ready for survival training?]

"What? I didn't know this was training. I thought it was just a camping trip."

[Everything can be training if you really try, Shana.]

* * *

[What is all this?]

"What does it look like? It's our gear."

[But why is there so much of it?]

"Is there? It doesn't seem like any more than two people would need for a week out in the woods."

[Tents, flashlights, food? Unnecessary.]

"You've got to be kidding me. In what way is _food_ unnecessary?"

[Bringing food is unnecessary. We can capture what we need.]

"In case you've forgotten, we're going to a national park. You can't just start killing off the wildlife whenever you feel like a snack. You need things like fishing permits and a hunting license."

[No.]

"Snake Eyes, this is not an optional thing. It's the law."

[Since when have I ever cared about the law?]

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

[The first thing I'll do is teach you how to skin a rabbit.]

* * *

"As much as my calves are thanking me, we've been hiking for miles. How much farther do we need to go?"

[Don't tell me you're tired.]

"Of course not. How could I be? I'm carrying practically nothing."

[One of the benefits of packing light.]

"Noted. But remind me again why we didn't at least bring a tent?"

[Ninja don't need tents.]

"Of course they don't. But what do ninja do if it rains?"

[Make a shelter out of branches and leaves. Or find a cave. I usually find a cave.]

"Don't bears like to live in caves?"

[I wouldn't worry. Bears like me.]

"Bears like you. As in – _all_ bears? Every bear likes you?"

[I've never met one that doesn't.]

* * *

[How have you lived your whole life without knowing how to start a fire?]

"I don't know. I guess that's what happens when you grow up in civilization and not some backwards ninja compound."

[I'll have you know my ninja compound was very technology friendly.]

"Snake, you once called my can opener _revolutionary_."

[I meant your electric one. And those things are very convenient. Opening cans is murder on my knives.]

"I'll remember that come Christmas time. But look – aren't you proud of me? It's burning and everything, like the little fire that could."

[I don't get it.]

"Never mind. All that matters is that I think I'm getting the hang of this. Although it would be a hell of a lot easier with matches."

[Here. I've got some in my pocket.]

"Seriously? You've had matches this whole time, and you never told me?"

[You never asked.]

"But it's the principle of the matter, Snake. Whatever happened to surviving with nothing but our wits and our bare hands?"

[I'm a ninja not a caveman.]

"Just go catch me some dinner."

* * *

[See? Not a rain drop in sight.]

"Fine, you were right. And you were also right about bringing one sleeping bag."

[I told you to trust me. It's all a part of the survival training.]

"Are we seriously still calling this training?"

[Why wouldn't we?]

"Because right now I'm not acting very much like an apprentice. And you're definitely not acting very much like a sensei."

[Do you want me to start acting more like a sensei?]

"That depends on what you want to teach me."

* * *

"So is this what it's like to be you? Up before dawn? Watching the sunrise every morning?"

[A little bit.]

"I had my doubts about all this outdoorsy stuff. But I have to admit it's kind of nice."

[That's very big of you.]

"Don't tease me. I mean it. It's so gorgeous out here. So quiet and peaceful. It's like we're the only people in the world, and all of this was made just for us."

[When I was younger, my senseis taught me that the natural world is a reflection of ourselves. To become one with the earth is to reveal who we truly are, and what we truly feel.]

"And what are you feeling right now?"

[Right now? Right now I'm probably the happiest I've ever been.]

"Is that so? You must really love nature, Snake Eyes."

[Yes.] _What I love is you, Shana._ [I do.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to say I did dialogue only for artistic reasons, but the truth is that I was just super pressed for time. Thanks for reading :)


	7. Say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. As you can see from the word count I got a little over ambitious with this one. Not much to say except that it's post canon, and beware the sap-fest, because I went all out fan girl mode with this one.

The hallway was narrow, three shoulder breadths across. A steel door capped one end, the one they'd been trying to blow open when every alarm went off.

_We're dead._

It was an accurate assessment of their situation, if not overly optimistic. Snake Eyes might have had the good sense to fear his fate if he wasn't so preoccupied with the rapid gunfire blazing overhead and to every side.

During a lull in the fusillade, Scarlett shot to her feet and leveled her M9 over the top of the upended metal table they were using as cover. Three shots. The sound of two bodies falling. She dropped back down. "I'm out." Blood wept from his right bicep. "How's your arm?"

[I'll live. What did you see?]

"We're like fish in a barrel. At least a dozen of them are barring the other end of the corridor. It's the only way out – no side doors or duct panels – and they're armed to the teeth." She grit her teeth. "How did they know we were here? They must have been informed –"

[Doesn't matter now. Backup?]

"I've got nothing on the comms." She closed her eyes briefly, opened them. "What's our exit plan?"

Snake Eyes wasn't a general. He had no head for war games or large scale strategy. But when it came to small tactical assault, there was none better than a ninja with a survival instinct. He pointed up. [I take out the lights. Then I move out to the left, draw their fire, drop as many as I can. That's where I'll make a hole in their blockade. You move along the east wall until you can break through. Grab one of their guns and blast your way out.]

Scarlett looked down to where she gripped her empty sidearm, knuckles white. "I don't think I like that plan."

[On my mark.] He counted off on one hand. [One. Two.]

"Wait." He barely heard her over the thundering gunfire, the sound of both their hearts pounding. She pulled up his mask and pressed her lips to his. It reminded him of their first kiss, quick yet powerful, tinged with a bit of fear, neither one knowing what lay on the other side. "Just in case," she breathed into his mouth.

He pulled his mask back down and nodded once. [One. Two.]

On three a handful of shuriken shattered the overhead lights. From the darkness came the tinkle of raining glass, bursts of jumbled shouts and expletives, stomping boots, and the angry buzz of random gunfire. Snake Eyes made no sound as he unsheathed his katanas and swept down the hall to the hush of slicing flesh, the telltale crunch of breaking bones.

Five were down when he felt Scarlett slip past him, a spurt of wind at his back. He saw only a vague outline as she rolled into a somersault past a fallen guard, grabbed a firearm out of a limp, dead hand, her hair like twisting ribbons as she raced into darkness.

Eight down. Ten down. His senses were slowing, breath shallow and his vision starting to spin. He should have tourniqueted that damn arm before throwing himself into the lion's maw.

But regrets on the battlefield usually landed one on a steel slab. So Snake Eyes forced his mind to clear, sheathed his swords, and staggered after Scarlett.

Two steps in his head exploded with flashes and pain – the crack of a rifle connecting to his skull.

The next thing he registered was the ground, hard and cold. He opened his eyes and found himself staring up into two pairs of night vision goggles, two beads drawing on his heart. "Get a load of who we've just captured. The Commander will be throwing out promotions for this one." Snake Eyes had just closed a hand around a knife hilt at his belt when he heard it:

"Step away, assholes." Shana's voice. _No._ _No._ She wasn't supposed to be here. _Why didn't you escape?_

A gun discharged. One guard fell beside Snake Eyes as he struggled upright. _Why did you come back?_ The other guard moved the barrel of the rifle from his chest to aim at the sound of her voice, and fired.

* * *

_The problem with Shana, Snake Eyes thought, was she couldn't let some things go._

" _I don't see why you're so against this. You need to be able to talk to people."_

Talk to people _. Did she even realize how incongruous that sounded? But that was the trouble with her, she couldn't just act like everyone else who had the misfortune of stumbling into his life, backing away uncomfortably whenever he materialized, accepting his quickly penned notes without question or comment, shrugging off the stifling silence with a few awkward jokes at his expense and in general never giving a second thought to what kind of inner life might be living inside the shrouded, silent ninja._

_Instead of making her burgeoning apprenticeship easy, she'd spent the better part of two weeks badgering him about this new scheme. Snake Eyes took a moment to consider his reply, then scribbled: THANK YOU FOR YOUR OFFER. BUT IT'S OK. He put her insistence to teach him sign language down to personality, her insatiable hunger for knowledge. She had already mastered three languages and counting. Perhaps this was simply an excuse to put another notch on her linguistic belt. I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO SPEAK FOR YEARS. I'M USED TO IT._

_Her face bunched as she read the note. She crumpled it in her palm with a trace of disgust. "Snake Eyes, can I be honest with you?" He thought –_ When are you ever not? _– and nodded his head. "Waiting around for you to write out your little notes…it's kind of a drag. I mean, talk about a time suck. You're always going on and on about speed and efficiency and fluidity. Wouldn't it be more efficient if you could just say what you want to say right when you want to say it?"_

 _Why didn't she get it? She just refused to understand._ I'll never _say_ anything, Shana. _And that was the real problem, the real trouble. Not Shana, but his shortcomings, and he wished she'd stop reminding him of it._

_SURE, he wrote. IT WOULD. BUT EVEN IF I LEARNED SIGN LANGUAGE, HARDLY ANYONE ELSE KNOWS IT._

_Her face lit up. "But I do. Well – I'm learning as fast as I can." Boldness was Shana's factory setting, a trait that fit her like a well tailored suit. But she broke character with a small, timid smile. "Don't you at least want to be able to talk to_ me _?"_

 _From behind his mask, Snake Eyes' mouth parted and his eyebrows slid up._ Does she know _? Her face was young and innocent, her expression benign – but did she know? How his pulse quickened when she said his name, or how she clouded his thoughts day and night? Was her question mere curiosity, or did she know enough to say exactly what was needed for him to give in?_

_OK. WHERE DO WE BEGIN?_

_She looked up from his note and grinned. "The same way you start learning any new language. With greetings."_

* * *

Backup generators hummed to life. Backup troops flooded the compound with the fluorescent light that bathed her static, pallid face as she lay with her head cradled in his lap.

 _She's dead_.

"She's not dead."

Tunnel Rat's voice. When did he get here? But he was too late, too late. If he had come ten minutes earlier then maybe...

"She's critical, but she's not dead."

But how could you possibly blame _Nicky_? He wasn't the one covering her back when it all went to hell. He wasn't the one entrusted with her care all those years ago. Shana is _your_ responsibility. She was your responsibility. _Was_ , and now you must forever think of her as _was_ and _used to be_ and _dea_ –

"Snake Eyes!" Snake Eyes squeezed his eyes shut. "Snake Eyes!" He couldn't think with Tunnel Rat shouting, the lakes of blood everywhere and the incessant throbbing in his head, the voice of truth beating him over and over again. _She's dead she's dead she's dead_.

"Snake Eyes!" Fingers dug into his arm. He looked to their source and saw Tunnel Rat's face, bodies littering the floor, the ones he must have killed, but he can't remember how or when, can't think past five minutes ago and the moment the bullet struck her down, and now Tunnel Rat was here, somehow, speaking to him. "Snake Eyes, listen to me. She's _not dead_."

Snake Eyes looked down. If he stared hard enough he could see beyond the blood and stillness and silence, he could see that she was –

Breathing.

Alive.

_She's alive._

"Let's get her to an evac."

* * *

" _Try it again. And this time not sooo…."_

 _Snake Eyes tilted his head._ What?

" _...sooo like you're trying to slaughter something."_

_His eyes narrowed. He felt a little like slaughtering her. But Snake Eyes summoned a measure of his legendary control, shoved down his irritation, and tried it again. From her aggravated sigh, he concluded he had not yet mastered the simple message. "You're doing the motions right – eerily precise, actually– but it's too fast. Slow it down. Ease into it. I know ninjas are all about speed, but this is communication, not a race." She signed it for him again._

_He looked down at the ground for a moment, then reached for his pen and paper. I THINK WE SHOULD CALL IT A NIGHT._

" _No. Absolutely not." Snake Eyes almost recoiled. For a minute she'd sounded exactly like the Hard Master. "If you can flip through the air like a dozen times or balance on a telephone wire, then you can do this." And she was right – at least about the mechanics. The physicality of learning sign language was not beyond him._

_But she was also wrong. What did it mean, to learn this language? It meant admitting his defeat. His terrible weakness born of his terrible failure. It meant facing the reality of what he'd become and finally letting go of his stolen voice, the hallmark of his past and all the demons that lived there._

_It also meant stepping into an uncertain future. One where he would be expected to say what he thought, say what he felt, where he could no longer hide behind the jagged scar across his throat, swallowed in the shadows and silence. Was he really ready to step into a world of light and sound?_

" _Just try it one more time," she said, her voice softening._

_Snake Eyes tried again. A swipe of the palms. Two fists, both index fingers pointed upwards, drawn together to meet in the middle. A point in her direction. [Nice to meet you.]_

_Her hands flew up. "There! That's it! That was great." She smiled wide and he thought she might clap, like a child at their birthday party. But instead she tucked her hair behind her ears, straightened her back and stuck out her right hand. "It's nice to meet you, too."_

_Shaking hands was not a customary greeting for Japanese. And, oddly enough, none of his acquaintances in America ever felt the need to perform social niceties with the silent, deadly ninja. But after a few beats of painful awkwardness, Shana's lonely hand hanging in the hair, Snake Eyes cautiously raised his arm._

_They didn't quite shake. Rather they stood there, hand in hand, a slight pressure against his palms, strangers that had decided to become friends._

_Ten minutes of sign language lessons for one hour of ninjitsu training, and Snake Eyes was starting to realize he'd got the better end of the bargain._

* * *

" _Traumatic brain injury caused by a penetrating gunshot wound near the left temporal lobe."_

He had carried her like a child to the evac helicopter, laid her on the stiff white stretcher and kneeled by her side, refused to budge even when the swarm of heckling medics descended on him, yelling at him about concussions and sustained hemorrhaging.

" _If you'll look here at the scan you'll see in this area an accumulation of blood, what we call an acute intracranial hematoma."_

Drenched in her blood, not an ounce of it showed against the inky fabric that made up his uniform, the proof of his sins dissolved into the darkness. It's why he chose the color. It's why he burned every scrap of it once they touched down on US soil and she was wheeled into surgery.

" _While these cases aren't hopeless, her prognosis isn't good. I can give her a thirty percent chance of waking up, and those chances decrease every day she stays in this coma."_

Coma. Such a deceivingly simple word for which he'd never bothered learning the sign. Her face and body were shut down in a way he'd never seen before, even when she had been knocked unconscious. Watching her closed eyes and unresponsive mouth, she didn't look like she was sleeping. She looked like she was –

"Is there anything at all we can do?" Her father's battered voice. He had booked a flight from Atlanta the minute General Hawk had made the call. The doctor directed all her comments and questions to him while Snake Eyes loomed in the dim light of her bedside like a silent sentinel, maskless and unarmed, shod in simple civvies that Shana had bought for him he can't remember when.

"It's hard to say, Mr. O'Hara. Right now it's really a waiting game. But it's probable she can hear you, so try talking to her. Sometimes familiar sounds or voices can help."

Her father said, "I will."

Snake Eyes said nothing.

* * *

_He forgot words. He mixed up motions. But he wasn't a hopeless case, she told him._ _"In fact, I kind of like watching you fluster around like this," she said after he flubbed another phrase. "It makes me think there might actually be a human under there and not some ninja-bot. And having hard proof that there's something I'm better at than you doesn't hurt, either."_

_But he didn't mind the potshots or the frequent doses of humility. The truth was he had never had a genius for language. Communication was a tricky thing, even when he could talk. His mind worked best in the realm of shapes and distances, not words, calculating trajectories, translating forces into velocities with the same unthinking intuition that made others novelists or master orators._

_Snake Eyes didn't need to be a master orator. He'd settle for mastering the alphabet, his finger mimicking Shana's as she traced a letter "z" into the air._

" _And that's all of it, A to Z," she said._

_GOOD. NOW I CAN WRITE EVERYTHING IN THE AIR INSTEAD OF ON PAPER._

_She stared at his note with a puzzled frown, as if reading a foreign language, then looked up at him askance. "I'm sorry – did you just make a joke? Were you being..._ sarcastic _?"_

 _His eyebrows shot up_. Uh-oh _. Before they had intersected into each other's lives, his isolationist habits had tamed his personality into a kind of dormancy. Snake Eyes tried his utmost not to awaken the sleeping beast, or let any of it slip through the fine cracks in his Fierce and Deadly Ninja facade. He found it ruined his mystique._

_He folded his arms and gave his best stern head shake._

_Shana laughed._ This is exactly what I mean, _he thought with a silent groan. "See, you do stuff like that, and it makes me wonder."_

_[What?]_

_She folded the note and slipped it into her pocket. "That there's a whole lot you're not saying."_

* * *

For the first few weeks a steady flow of visitors filtered in and out of her hospital room. Shana had scanty friends and family to speak of, but the whole team rotated through, Tunnel Rat snarking the discomfort away, Roadblock blaring his worst music.

Marvin laid a plate of her favorite cookies on her bedside table with a shrug and, "I figured it couldn't hurt. Who wouldn't want to wake up for a batch of these babies?"

Nicky rolled his eyes. "Only you would think cookies could be the next big cure for coma."

"Stranger things, man, stranger things." Their voices faded through the door, down the hall.

Duke remained. He looked down at Scarlett with hard, dry eyes and issued his standard NCO boiler plate. "Look alive, soldier. You think we're gonna give up on you now? Cobra's still out there, still hurting people, and we need you out of that bed so we can bring them down, together. And that's an order."

[She outranks you, stupid. You can't order her to do anything.]

Duke blinked at him. "I'm sorry, what?"

Snake Eyes waved a hand. _Nothing_. It was an unfair remark and he knew Duke meant well. Duke always meant well, and he always had one way of meaning it, with grandeur and nobility, and for all that Snake Eyes respected the sergeant he could never fully quash the unease of his presence, the nagging question of why Shana would ever settle for coarse graphite when there were polished diamonds waiting in the wings.

Not that it mattered now, while she lay like a stone in her hospital bed. Duke lowered himself onto the little sofa to sit awkwardly beside him, abusing his baseball cap in his fidgeting hands. "We all want her back, Snake Eyes. I know you most of all."

He nodded.

"And we're here for you, too. You know that, right?"

This time he gave a sign that he knew Duke would understand. [Thank you.]

But with each passing day the visitors thinned, her room emptied of life. The solitude gave Snake Eyes a chance to steep in his remorse and guilt, and he could hear her phantom voice chiding him in his head: "Why are you being like this? I did it to save you."

[But a life without you isn't really worth saving, is it?]

"You're impossible. Why do you always blame yourself?"

[Because it's always my fault.]

Her father made his last appearance one bright Tuesday morning. "Hey Pumpkin. I brought something for you." Patrick was crying, his hands shaking as he pulled a worn teddy bear out from a brown paper bag. "Remember this? You used to drag this thing with you wherever you went. I thought you might want it to keep you company." A relic from her childhood, another guilt offering laid at the altar of his neglect.

What could it be but a goodbye present?

SO YOU'RE FLYING HOME?

Patrick broke down after he read the note, and would not look him in the eye. "Maybe it's not right." _No. It's not._ "But I can't stay here any longer. My presence won't do her a lick of good, but maybe my work can. And I know...I know you won't leave her."

Her small hospital room gently quieted to the lifeless hum of machinery and two voiceless mouths. Snake Eyes tried to fill the crippling silence in the only way he could. He wrote with his finger down each of her arms, across her neck. Her name, his name. In English and Japanese.

I love you. _Koishiteruyo_. Please wake up. _Okitekudasai_.

[Open your eyes and hear me,] he signed again and again over her unseeing eyes.

But she wouldn't open them. She wouldn't move and she wouldn't speak. She lay there, every day, every hour, breathing and living, silent as the dawn. And he of all people knew that to be silenced was really just a kind of slow death.

* * *

_Shana rose as he vaulted over the ledge of the roof and landed gently before her. Straightening he saw she wore a smile, and that particularly devilish gleam in her eye that made him want to back away slowly. "So, Snake Eyes. I was thinking…"_

_He backed away slowly._

" _Hey! Stop that! It's not anything dangerous. I was just thinking that we need names."_

_[Names?] An odd suggestion, considering they both had them. He cocked his head. [What do you mean?]_

" _On the first day of class, my ASL professor gave us all sign names – and that's what we should do. We should make names for ourselves in sign language."_

_[Why? You can say my name.]_

" _True. But let's at least make one for me. Then you could say my name instead of just pointing at me all the time."_

_[You don't like that?]_

_She folded her arms. "It makes me feel like I'm about to get detention."_

_He had no idea what detention meant, but the way she said, like she was eating soap, gave him a vague notion it was similar to the horse whips his senseis had cherished in their version of discipline. SHOW ME THE NAME YOUR PROFESSOR GAVE YOU._

" _No way." She threw the note over her shoulder at the idea. "I hate the one he gave me. We should make a new one. One for just us." Her face split in that high voltage grin of hers, sending out shockwaves as he tried not to dwell on the way she said the 'us.' Slicked with sweat from her rooftop workout, hair damp and disheveled, her grass green eyes shone like beacons in the ubiquitous dim glow of a metropolis at midnight. "What do you think?"_

_What else could he think, when she went around looking like that? Snake Eyes swallowed. [OK.]_

_She performed a simple gesture. "How about this?" He nodded his approval. "Good. Now you try it."_

_He took a moment to focus, then held out his fist to form an 's,' extended his first two fingers to form the letter h and passed it over his face, forehead to chin._ Shana. _Short. Simple. Nothing about performing the easy motion felt momentous._

_But when he watched her close her eyes, a smile ghosting at her lips, it dawned on him that he had said her name for the very first time._

" _It's like I can hear it." Her eyes opened. "Say it again."_

* * *

He left her side for only a few hours each day. To train. To run and kick and hit things till his hands bled. He turned his naked face to the sky and let the sun and rain beat down on him in turns, the only variation in a parade of weeks and months that blended together until he hardly knew what day it was or how long he had been waiting for what would never come.

Then one afternoon he heard a knock, the shush of an opening door, and the doctor walked in, ushering with her those awkward seconds where her face visibly scrambled, trying desperately to remember what she was supposed to call him.

"Sir?" She usually settled on sir. "Sir, I've come to inform you that we'll need to move Miss O'Hara soon."

Snake eyes shot up, shaking his head, hands moving rapidly in the air.

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand. We can provide a translator, but it will take some time."

He shook his head again and grabbed a pad and pencil. SHE'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

"I'm sorry, but that's not up to you."

SHE HASN'T BEEN HERE THAT LONG.

"After three months it's procedure to transfer our patients to a long term facility. We've kept her here longer than we should, and at this juncture..." She hesitated. Snake Eyes could detect pity from a mile away, and her voice was lathered with it when she said, "I'm sorry, but we're simply not equipped to deal with the type of long term care she's going to need."

The allusion to Shana's future, to her non-future and permanent stasis, stripped him of any other argument. He put the pen away. The doctor slipped through the door and left them to their silence.

Snake Eyes reached down and smoothed back her hair. It had grown ragged and unkempt, her skin sickly white. What would a long term facility look like? A room lined with bodies just like hers, slowly morphing into corpses?

He had a feeling it would look like a morgue.

Snake Eyes rose. He paced around the room, fingers pulling at his hair, his limbs and body drained, as if a balloon had burst inside him. He was deflating. Useless. Powerless. Because all the skill and patience and strength in the world could do nothing to halt her slow, inevitable decline, and he wished she had died, wished both of them had died. Death, at least, provided a way forward. Death could be translated into purpose.

But this endless waiting…

He returned to her side, subsided onto her bed and leaned over her, touching his forehead to hers. Shana had once asked him what it felt like to attempt talking. He'd answered that it felt exactly how it sounded: like nothing. And that was exactly how it sounded now when he said, "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to do, or say. If I could speak, maybe I could reach you." He paused. "But if I could speak, maybe I would have never met you. Isn't life funny?"

But Snake Eyes heard no laughter. He heard what he always heard. Silence. The silence. The verdict of his failure.

"Shana, please come back. I don't think I can survive this." Was there any way to atone? He couldn't undo time. He couldn't take her place on that bed. The best he could offer was to become like her. So he shifted her slightly and laid down in the meager space beside her, his head next to hers and her hand in his as he whispered in her ear – "Shana, please. Shana. Shana." – closed his eyes and softly drifted, drifted…

_What do you dream about?_

She had asked him that, once, years ago when they still handled each other with caution and waking up beside her felt a lot like dreaming. "I know you do because sometimes you thrash around a bit in your sleep. And it's kind of creepy."

Instead of answering he had sunk into himself, probably jumped out of the window or something. He was never good at disclosure. He was much better at escape. And how could he ever explain to her the burning replays of his parents, the hard master, blackened skin and blood leaking from his throat?

But as he lay next to her in those fresh, hazy stages of slumber Snake Eyes welcomed them like old friends, every nightmare now a kinder version of reality, because sprinkled among the horror was _her_ , vibrant and cunning – awake – teaching him to say hello, teaching him the alphabet.

Their first handshake.

A hand pressed against his.

His eyes snapped open. There was pressure on his hand. Slight, unsteady, but _there_.

He bolted upright. [Shana?]

Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was closed. Her breathing had not changed.

"Shana?" Nothing. "Shana, please be there." Silence.

His breathing slowed. His pulse steadied. Snake Eyes put a hand over his eyes and turned his back to her prostrated face. _You're never waking up, are you?_

And then he heard it, the specter of her voice haunting his head, as it sometimes did. "Snake?" A whisper this time, quiet as clouds and dry as gravel. "Snake?" But something was different. The air had shifted. Snake eyes twisted around.

Green eyes opened. "Snake?" His whole world hung on a single, silk thread and he was afraid to touch it, to move or to speak because he had such a knack for breaking things. So he stared frozenly at her and did nothing. "It's you, right?"

 _It's real._ He nodded. He took one of her hands. [You're awake.]

"Yeah." She licked her lips. "Why can't I move?"

[You've been gone for a long time.] He should call the nurses.

"Have I? But I heard you. I heard you calling for me."

His vision blurred. [I tried. I tried. But I couldn't say anything. I never can.]

"Don't be stupid. You did." He shook his head. "You did. I've been listening to you for years. I know your voice. I can hear when you say my name."

He didn't reply. His hands were around her neck, twined in her hair as he bathed her skin in tears, a voice in his ear, a smile in her voice as she said, "Say it again."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know, this is sort of a homage to the original marvel run when Snake Eyes says his first and only word of the entire series, "Scarlett," while she is in a coma after getting shot in the head (*sobs eternally*). I thought I would do a version for the renegade pair.
> 
> While I did do some research for this fic, I really didn't do any research about actual coma patients and their care, so if this is wildly off the mark please forgive me.


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